theboonedoggle

In the time we have been traveling (7 months now!), we each have found little places here and there which we simply can't be bothered to tear ourselves away from. Unfortunately, they have never been the same places; I love the isolated beaches, and Tatyana has a thing for comfy little towns... But for the first time, we both found such simple contentment in one little spot, it was really quite difficult to leave. And now, I can't seem to get it out of my head... Our introduction to Sulawesi, as you know from the previous entry, was not a pleasant one. The loss of our camera, itself, was no big deal... the loss of the pictures was a devastation for Tatyana, who loves her pictures. Once we got past it (with the help of quite a few "anger beers"), we were able to get on with enjoying what is one of the coolest places we've been to yet. Sulawesi, if one looks it up, resembles a giant octopus in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago. No place on the island is more t...

Selamat, A month in Thailand and Malaysia was just what we needed to recover from two months of hard travel through Nepal and India. But towards the end we were itching to get back off the beaten path. So, we decided to scratch Java and Bali and head for Borneo and Sulawesi. Kalimantan is Indonesia's part of Borneo Island which it shares with Malaysia and Brunei. So we took a cheap flight to Malaysia's Sabah area and crossed over by boat. This area is absolutely stunning and while our guidebook says that about 80% of forest has been cut down over the last 20 years, the island is still filled with thick and lush forests. The country has benefited a lot from logging and palm oil and while people are well off, infrastructure here is still very poor - for instance there is no way to get from the east coast to the west by car and on even the major highways (a narrow dirt road through the forest) it can take more than 4 hrs to go 50 kilometers. While the Dayak people live pretty mode...